Cýððu
by CaraLee934
Summary: They were gone. With nothing left behind to show they had been there other than a burned out campfire, and the small golden-haired boy looking up at Merlin from beneath those ridiculous eyebrows.


**Merlin and Hetalia belong to BBC and Hidekaz Himaruya respectively. As I am neither British, nor Japanese, we can thereby surmise that I own them not.**

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Cýððu

It was official, Merlin decided as he looked at the…problem he had somehow gotten stuck with. Any day that looked like it might be boring? Was lying. It was in disguise.

Because apparently there was no such thing as a quiet, boring day in his life.

X~X~X~X

It began when Merlin somehow became separated from Arthur while they were out hunting. Or rather, while Arthur was out hunting and had dragged him along to carry things. They had gone a little farther into the forest than usual, (on foot of course.) and that in and of itself had made Merlin uneasy.

And then they had been separated.

He still wasn't sure how they had managed it, but one moment Arthur had been there, and the next moment Merlin was on his own and very lost.

Over the next hour or so, Merlin wandered around, calling Arthur's name in low tones. (He'd had too many unpleasant encounters with bandits to start shouting, thank you very much.)

Then he'd heard a sound in a thicket and investigated. He'd found someone, but it hadn't been Arthur.

It was a child, a brown-haired boy with large, soft green eyes. He couldn't have been more than eight summers and was clad in rough garments that did little to hide the slight frame that was much thinner than a child his age should be, as if he was barely fending off starvation. But more than outward appearances, it was what Merlin felt from him. It was most definitely magic. And powerful magic at that, some of the most powerful that Merlin had ever seen.

The two of them had looked at each other for a moment before the boy had broken the silence.

"You are Emrys."

Merlin had panicked.

"I don't know what you are talking about." He'd stuttered out, backing away and reaching for his magic. Whoever, _whatever_ this boy was, he obviously knew things.

"Yes you do." The boy said calmly, and it was only then that Merlin realized they were speaking in his own language, the language of Ealdor and the lands around it. Not the Latin or Brythonic tongues spoken in Uther's kingdom.

"What are you?" Merlin straightened his back and stared at the child, who merely smiled.

"What do you think I am Emrys?" The boy looked straight into Merlin's eyes, and Merlin was caught in images of hills, fields, the old tree outside of Ealdor that he had climbed when he was younger, waves pounding on rocks, his mother's beloved herb garden where she tenderly raised the plants that she turned into simple remedies for the village…

Then the boy had looked away and Merlin struggled briefly with a sense of loss before the boy spoke again.

"Come with me Emrys."

Without waiting for any sort of reply to his command, the child turned and began jogging off. For lack of a better option, Merlin, still reeling from what he had felt and seen, followed him.

They had walked for nearly ten minutes before they came upon a small cave, and were accosted by yet another boy, this one some two or three summers elder than the first, with long, matted red hair and eyes that burned like a green flame. He too, seemed abnormally thin, but also felt of old, strong magic, and he brandished an intricately carved spear at Merlin expertly, despite his lack of age or weight.

"Who is this!" He snapped, speaking a rough dialect of Brythonic, deeply accented as if it was not his native language. "Why did you bring him here Cymru?"

The brown-haired boy, Cymru, ignored him and crawled into the cave, reemerging seconds later pulling a third boy, younger than he or the other, with green eyes like their own, but brighter than Cymru's and less bright than the red-head's. He had the most enormous eyebrows that Merlin had ever seen, their dark color contrasting darkly with his fair hair. The magic was practically pouring off of him.

Cymru walked up to Merlin, tugging the younger child behind him.

"This is Albion, Emrys. Take care of him."

"Cymru! What are you doing?" The red-head shouted, before falling into a long, loud rant in what Merlin thought was one of the Northern dialects. Cymru ignored him and pulled two bundles out of the cave while Merlin still stood with his mouth hanging open, mind running over the boy' sentences again and again.

_What does he mean, 'This is Albion'? Albion is the prophesied kingdom! Take care of him? What? And why is that kid named Cymru. I thought that was what the kingdoms of Gwynedd and Essetir were called?_

"We need to go, Caledonia." Cymru slung one of the bundles over his shoulder and lowered the other to the ground, where it uncurled, revealing itself as a very small girl, with a wild tangle of light-brown hair, who clung to Cymru's trouser leg with all the determination of one of Gaius' leeches.

"What?" The eldest boy stared for a moment, head swiveling to face first Merlin and the smallest boy, then Cymru and the girl. "What do you mean _bràthair_?"

"We aren't needed here anymore." Cymru said with a sad smile. "Emrys will take care of him. We aren't supposed to be here anyway."

"But-" The eldest boy, Caledonia (Wasn't that the name of the wild northern lands up beyond Caerleon?) seemed to wilt. "Are you sure?"

Cymru nodded. "I am sure."

There was a crashing sound from behind Merlin. He whirled around and could see Arthur approaching, obviously tracking him, and even more obviously annoyed. He turned back around to the strange, magical children…

And they were gone. With nothing left behind to show they had been there other than a burned out campfire, and the small golden-haired boy looking up at Merlin from beneath those ridiculous eyebrows.

_Just perfect._

"_Mer_lin." Arthur's voice drawled from behind him. "What is this?"

Merlin pasted an over-large grin onto his face and turned around, beaming determinedly at the crown prince. "What is what?"

Arthur gave him the _Merlin-you-are-such-an-_idiot look before pointing to the boy. (Merlin was determinedly not thinking about his name and what it might imply.)

"That Merlin. What is that?"

"Oh!" Merlin winced internally_._ "It's a boy."

"I can see that _Mer_lin." Arthur's tone was hard, a sign that he really had better stop avoiding the question. "Who. Is. He?"

"Um." Merlin glances down at the child, who is alternating staring at Arthur and Merlin himself with something like hero-worship written all across his face.

For once, he decided to go with the truth, or part of it anyway. "I found him here." At Arthur's raised eyebrow he abandoned "truth" and scrambled to fabricate something. "He said his parents were killed by bandits. He's been hiding here for at least a day."

Arthur immediately became alert, scanning the surrounding area for any signs of bandits, hand on the hilt of his sword. Once he was satisfied that there was no immediate threat, he whirled on his heel. "Right. Back to Camelot then. Bring your little ragamuffin Merlin and let's get a move on."

Merlin watched the prince's back in shock for a moment before hurrying to catch up, practically dragging the child along with him.

They traveled in silence for well over an hour, though after ten minutes Merlin had had to begin carrying the boy.

"So." Arthur abruptly broke the silence. "What's your name." His voice was the least bit softer than usual and Merlin recognized the concern in his tone. He simultaneously realized that he had yet to hear the boy speak.

"My name is Albion." The child muttered quietly.

Arthur stopped walking and turned to face them.

"Your name is what? Speak up lad, I can't hear you."

The boy cleared his throat and began again as Merlin silently paniced.

"My name is A-"

"Arthur." Merlin blurted out. "His name is Arthur." He finished weakly as both the prince and the boy stared at him.

"Arthur." The prince said, deadpan. "His name is Arthur."

Merlin nodded frantically. "Yes. His name is Arthur."

"That is my name Merlin."

"Well, it's his name too!"

"Is it really now."

"You don't own the name you know. Other people can be called Arthur too if they want!"

The two of them stared at each other for at least a minute before Arthur rolled his eyes and began walking towards Camelot, which was now visible through the trees.

"If you say so _Mer_lin."

"I do say so." The young warlock grumbled to himself as he set the child on the ground, looking down at him seriously.

"We will talk, later, about who and what you are. But for now, you are Arthur. Got it?"

The child nodded, seeming to mull the name over. "I'm Arthur."

Merlin nodded tiredly, foreseeing several arguments with Gaius in his near future. "Yes, you are Arthur."

Then he took the boy's hand and let him towards Camelot.

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To Be Continued...

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**A/N: According to the English-Old English dictionary found at **

** .net (slash) ~modean52 (slash) oeme_ , "cýððu" translates to "native land" It was the closest I could find to "homeland" which is what I was looking for.**

**Bràthair = Scots Gaelic for "brother"**

**Caledonia = Scotland**

**Cymru = Wales**

**Albion (II) = England**

**The little girl is Cornwall, who would have been called "Kernow" by her brothers at this point in time.**

**I am a huge Arthurian legends geek, so this and all my Merlin fics will be at least lightly influenced by that. I'm particularly fascinated by the culture clashes that would have happened in that historical time period, so there will be elements of that as well. This is my first Merlin fic, so I'm a little nervous.**

**I know there isn't much actual Hetalia in here. I originally intended for it to be Scotland who found Merlin and there be a big argument. But then Wales kinda showed up and took over. Oh well.**

**Reviews are food and drink to a poor, starving storyteller. Please feed the dragon!**


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